I am hoping it will be ready to play by mid-May. Beau Roch came out today and will be creating a course page and a map for you guys. I also created a facebook page called "The woodlands disc golf course at Gates Town Park" where will post some pics and course info. As of now, April 28 at noon is the date and time we will be digging holes for the baskets. If it all gets done, the baskets could be up a few days later! I'll be at the club meeting this Sunday to share some more info, but feel free to comment or contact me if you have any questions. Hope to see you out at The Woodlands!

Daniel - thanks for meeting me out there yesterday and giving me the chance to see the layout and GPS it so I can help you get a map together and get a page together.

I liked the layout where there are a few open holes but most are in the woods and even some water hazards that need to be avoided. Some holes are pretty technical and should offer a pretty good challenge.

I should have the Google Earth version done by this weekend and with some luck a rough draft of the course map soon after.

dhoock wrote: I am hoping it will be ready to play by mid-May. As of now, April 28 at noon is the date and time we will be digging holes for the baskets. If it all gets done, the baskets could be up a few days later!

Digging and placing baskets shouldn't take more then a couple hours. Why mid may? What else needs to be done?

9 baskets are in the ground. If you'd like to preview the course, my advice would be to download and print off the map that Gene posted above this. In time, the holes will be properly marked, but today I was just happy to get the baskets in!

Hope you all enjoy it! Please give me some feedback once you get out there (and yes, I know I have to fix a few of the chains). See you out at the Woodlands!

myself and 2 girlfriends played the course........(a nice gentleman directed us) on our lunch hour. We just missed you! Anyway,kudos for getting this course in the ground.However,way to difficult for the casual/recreational player. Families may come once,but they most likely will not come back.A nice course for the Advanced/Pro players........Again,my friends thank YOU for all your hard work.

Hey all, My name is Jim. Just played the first 5 and wanted to let you know thathole 6 (?) is out of the ground on its side. It's directly east of the hole next to the pond about 30 feet into the trail leading into the woods.

Which one of your girlfriends do you throw discs with Dave? The right or the left? Seriously tho, do you really think your fooling anyone? You gotta be one crazy sob to take this fake persona this far, for that long.

First off, Dave...this whole fake identity thing is getting really creepy. This is the sort of thing that Chris Hanson investigates.

But for a second lets pretend you really are a senior woman veteran recreational disc golfer who coincidentally showed back up just after DT was booted for posting inappropriate comments . What is it in your opinion that makes this course so unappealing to casual park visiting families? Is it just hole distances? Why not suggest some rec. tee positions. Or is it something else? Why not bring it up and start a dialog instead of dismissing the course out of hand?

I know that you like to think that everyone on this site is a professional player with no concern for the new/casual/recreational player but its just not the case. New players are good for the sport and I think everyone here knows that. And we would all be happy to see some constructive suggestions from you instead of back-handed complements rooted in ancient history.

Thanks, Dan and others for all the efforts that went into this course 10 Minutes from my house . Sorry we have jacked the thread with another trip into the DT twilight zone.

Currently, there is a 6 hole course that you can play at Gates Town Park. Not only was hole #6 messed with, but #5 and #7 were as well. Apparently, someone is unhappy with disc golf at the park. I will be heading out Friday morning to re-concrete and try to make them more stable. Does anyone have ideas as to how I should go about doing that (other than more concrete and bigger holes in the ground)? I know that if someone tries hard enough they can ruin anything, but I guess I made it too easy for them the first time around.

As for the course, I certainly wanted it to have at least a medium level of difficulty or else it would have been a waste of time for the majority of people to come play it. Easier tees are a possibility down the line, but I was hoping to give people a challenge and make a course that was as unique as possible.

By the way, I failed to mention that I really did enjoy the holesthat I played! I particularly liked hole 3, which played along sidethe creek. Very cool! Thank you so much for all your hard work!Can't wait to get out there again. Oh, and the course is definitelychallenging, but not THAT difficult. My average drive is about 200feet (on a good day!) and I managed to throw par (3?) on hole 1...just my two cents.

Man, that didn't take long. I was optimistic that there wouldn't be that kind of vandalism at the park, maybe just some spraypaint on the baskets or whatever. If we keep fixing them hopefully it will subside. fwiw I don't think it was the lady behind hole 3. My guess is that is was some dirtbikers who want the park all to themselves.

All 9 baskets are in at this point. It's going to be a real nice weekend, so hopefully some of you guys can get out there and play. I guess the more people in the park and using the course, the less likely it would be for people to mess with the baskets. We'll see what happens...

Sorry to hear about the vandalism --- hope the baskets stay in the ground this time. If not, one other thing to do would be to get 5 gallon buckets and cement the sleeves into the buckets, once it hardens, then bury both the bucket and the sleeve which may make it much more difficult to vandalize. Can't wait to play the course and thanks for all of the hard work installing another course here in Rochester.

IMO --- short tees are always a nice option to cater to beginners, but in building a course, I favor setting it up making sure that there is enought room for the harder and longer placements and then you can always shorten things up whereas most of the time you cannot lengthen holes. Also IMO, not many players gripe when they have to throw the frisbee more then once to get to the basket. This whole too difficult crap is getting tiresome. beginner golfers have no problem shooting 8's on every hole when they start out and dont bitch about the course being too long, why would it be different in disc golf?

8's!? My first time outside the driving range I was shooting in the 20s on every hole! Didn't deter me from playing real courses, and eventually I was a shooting high 70's before I traded my clubs for discs.

Tried the course out yesterday with Sean and it definitely has alot of potential. there were soccer practices going on so it becomes a little dangerous to play hole four. im assuming there were flags for the tee of areas in the beginning but are now missing on some of the holes so we made up where to throw. With some of the basket positions it makes for pretty technnical and exciting holes. and i can definitely see it become 18 at one point down the road.... nice work!!!!

I've gone to that park a lot in the summer and the soccer and baseball fields are always packed. Surprised the town even allowed it to go in. I'm sure there will be a ton of complaints from school teams that play there if there is disc golfers using it regularly at the same time. I didn't bring a map and only could find like 5 holes. Thought it was pretty good for how the land is. Kind of a hard park to make a dg course work there. As just a 9 I think it's got to much going on with the water and soccer fields and swampy woods. If it was 18 the challenges might be more worth it to go play regularly.

I was aware that #4 was too close to soccer fields, and in the future I had already thought about moving that one. Thanks for the feedback though. The baseball field has been empty for 5+ years, although it is in great shape and I m not sure why no one uses it.

Scouts are doing some work for the course this weekend!

I'll be working on the tee signs soon.

I'm glad some of you have gotten out and played....its still a work in progress, but I am going to make sure it keeps getting better.

I played the course last Friday and I do like some of the challenges it offers. It is definitely in a testing-only condition and needs lots of work before it can be opened for playing. Here are some observations/suggestions that I had:

Holes #1-9: Putting the hole numbers on the baskets somewhere will help with navigating the course until the signs are in.

Hole #2: A bridge is needed at the far end of the field. As it is there is only one way across the creek and it involves a lot of backtracking if your drive is on the left side.

Hole #3: A bridge is needed somewhere. Its a really cool and challenging hole but without a bridge its also really frustrating. There is also some work needed to make a good tee area. It's tough to get good footing and get the disc around that first tree...unless that tree is coming down at some point.

Holes #5-8: Obviously need TLC to clear out the fairways. This just takes time and people playing, but right now it is very rough.

Holes #6/7: There needs to be a safe way to get from 6 to 7. I like that 6 plays along an elevated ridge, but there are no safe ways to get down or up. Needs some stairs or a rope railing or something.

It does look like the course plays right through a dirt bike trail, and 6's basket is right in the way. Guess that's why it had been ripped out and was at the bottom of the hill again when I was there.

Lots of improvements at the Woodlands already. Thanks for your comments. Many of your suggestions were already in progress, but some of them have helped me to think even farther ahead...

So what's new?

Baskets are all numbered. Tees are next. I also made up a few quick signs pointing you to the next tee as well.

There are a few crossings over the water on #3, so if you throw to the left it should be easier to get back over.

#4 - I knew soccer would be an issue at times (though I played last night and only 6:30-7:30pm was an issue) and I have a great solution that I will talk about in a moment. Sometimes you will just have to skip this one.

The fairway at #5 was expanded a bit.

Some scouts came out this past weekend and totally transformed #6 and #7. The fairways were cleared on both holes and a really nice set of stairs was built. I couldn't be happier with the job they did.

I've been working hard on the fairways and the approach for #8. It's a tough hole as it is, but I played it twice yesterday and got a 3 both times.

The best news? I will be adding a hole number 10 that will play over the pond and it really is a very picturesque hole. There is a trail from the #9 basket to the left and a nice open area where the tee will be. One of my rationales is that if you have to skip #4 because of soccer, then #10 will still give you the ability to play a solid 9 holes. Otherwise, you get to play 10.

I plan on paying for the basket with a few events this summer (I run a fun bike race/scavenger hunt-ish event through Gates and Chili. Quick details: July 13 at 2:00pm at Macgregors in Gates and I can provide more info if necessary). Also, we will be holding an official opening day tournament once I have the course ready (mid-summer?) and both of those events should buy the new basket and some other expenses along the way.

A bridge at #2 and some stairs between #8 and #9 are planned and will be done at some point.

If you haven't been out to play, come check it out. If you have been out, hopefully you make it back soon to enjoy some of the improvements.

All for now, thanks. Oh and I have some pictures of the course, new hole, stairs, etc. at The Woodlands Disc Golf course at Gates Town Park on Facebook. Feel free to check it out.

The scouts did a really good job with the stairs and some of the cleanup. we should get them to build two bridges for basil. I wonder if the park would mind if the tee logs were spray painted white or blue because at first i didn't notice them. as for the additional basket and having a hole 10 is awesome. But instead of waiting for the new basket to come in what about moving 4's basket to the new spot? The course is definitely coming together though.... great work by all.

First off thanks for all the work that has gone into getting this course in the ground. My group played this course this past Saturday, June 1st and overall we really liked what we saw so far. The park was basically deserted and we only saw one other group during our round, no soccer going on at all so perhaps that has calmed down for the summer?

The tee at 8 needs to be re-staked, we found one of the flags at what we assume was the tee location but we weren't sure. This is definitely a more challenging and technical course, especially with the couple of blind fairways on 5 and 8. We really appreciated the challenge but some tape or ribbon tied around the trees on these fairways would be excellent until the paths get more beat in.

Once the fairways are more clearly defined it will be easier to stake out some shorter, intermediate tees to attract less advanced players but all in all Woodlands is a very enjoyable 9 hole course that has some great potential. Thanks again to everyone who has put their time and resources into this course.

CheatinLeftyBastard wrote:The six holes i played were fun. Bummed that there is already this much trouble. I was looking forward to being able to squeeze 9 holes in on lunch everyday since I work a mile away.

I also only work about a mile away.....anytime you're looking for company I'd like to check out this course. Pm me to swap contact info